“This ain’t your mama’s Color Purple,” Oprah Winfrey ensures fans per Vanity Fair.
The Color Purple is a 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that was later adapted to the screen for a 1985 film (which gave Winfrey her first big acting break) and then a Tony-winning musical. And now, there’s going to be a new version of the film.
“It has been a vehicle for magic and purpose in my life,” Winfrey says. “I don’t know anybody who’s ever been associated with it whose life didn’t get enhanced. Everything comes from the original words of Alice Walker, which were grounded in love, really. Love of this community. Love of these people. Love of those characters. And that just gets passed on and passed on and passed on. I can’t wait to see this next evolvement, which is not attached to having done it the way we’ve always done it.”
Now, a new version of the film is coming, starring Fantasia Taylor (“Celie”), Colman Domingo (“Mister”), Taraji P. Henson (“Shug Avery”), Danielle Brooks (“Sofia”), Halle Bailey (“Nettie”), Corey Hawkins (“Harpo”), and H.E.R (“Squeak”).
Winfrey forecasts that this will be a life-changing experience for these actors as it once changed hers. The Color Purple starts shooting in Georgia next month.